


Ring

by BurningTea



Category: Leverage
Genre: Eliot is in the dark, First Kiss, Multi, Parker has a plan, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 12:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8248621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea
Summary: Hardison asks Eliot for help picking out an engagement ring for Parker. It doesn't end up sticking to that plan.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tidal_race](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tidal_race/gifts).



> Based on the prompt from tidal_race:
> 
> For the TFLN prompt: Parker/Hardison (812): My girlfriend went down on me and as she did she hummed the theme from star wars and pretended my dick was a lightsaber...I'm buying the engagement ring tomorrow.
> 
> I have managed to take a prompt with a blowjob reference and make it hardly smutty at all, if that. Because it is my talent.

Eliot’s had worse requests made of him, but he can’t think of many that have seemed so out of left-field. He has a mouthful of pancake when Hardison asks him. It takes a moment to remember he’s supposed to be chewing. Once his mouth’s empty again, he points his fork across the table and narrows his eyes.

“You want me to what now?”

“Help me pick out an engagement ring for Parker.”

Okay. That’s what he thought Hardison said. Good to know he’s not lost his mind. Yet, anyway, although with these two around it’s only a matter of time. Eliot finishes up his pancake while he thinks. 

“You asked her yet? You know how she is with surprises, man.”

Hardison nods, but his whole face is lit up. Thinking about it, Eliot should have known it was more than the usual happiness at life Hardison manages so well. There’s an eagerness to him that turns up mostly when something good has happened with Parker and him. Eliot generally tries to ignore it. 

“Yeah, I know,” Hardison says, “It’s under control. I just need the ring. And then we can plan the most romantic wedding ever to be witnessed or experienced by humankind.”

“With Parker?” Eliot asks. He can wrap his mind around a lot of things, a skill he’s perfected since meeting the team, but ‘Parker’ and ‘romance’ in the same sentence don’t make a lot of sense. “This is the same Parker who saw no problem taking a mark down at his own wedding, right?”

Hardison waves his hand in the air, grimacing.

“We were doing the guy’s fiancee a favor. And yeah, that Parker. You think I got a second Parker stashed away somewhere?” A look of panic flashes across his face and he leans in. “Don’t go saying that kind of thing. You know she doesn’t do so well with thinking she might get replaced.”

“I promise not to tell Parker you’ve got a spare her,” Eliot says, solemnly, and even manages not to sound too sarcastic. 

He must be mellowing. Or he’s just been worn down by the two of them, especially since Nate and Sophie swanned off to play civilian and left Eliot to deal with them alone.

“Great,” Hardison says. “So, you in?”

“You get she isn’t going to want a ring you’ve bought?” Eliot asks next, getting up to pour himself another mug of coffee. He takes Hardison’s mug and tops that off, too. “You don’t need me to tell you that.”

Hardison looks insulted.

“You think I woke up and left all my brains behind me on the pillow? Come on. No. Course I get that. You’re coming to point out the kind I should take her to steal.”

 

***

 

Which is how Eliot Spencer finds himself visiting what feels like every jewelry store in Portland in the company of the world’s most excitable man. Taking a Labrador to a bouncy ball factory would have been less tiring. 

In the first shop, Hardison makes a beeline for the largest, flashiest rings, and Eliot has to steer him away and over to a tray of simpler, far more elegant rings. 

“These’ll suit her better,” he says. “Besides, they’re better quality stones. You can’t go getting Parker a bad diamond, man. Come on.”

“I could get one made,” Hardison says, but he sets his hands on the top of the glass case and peers down at what’s inside. “Or maybe find an antique. Hey, are any museums showing old rings she might like? Aragorn didn’t just buy Arwen a new necklace.”

“Let’s just figure out the style you want, first,” Eliot says, because he’ll help Hardison to plan a heist if it comes to it, and he knows Parker’s views on stealing, but he’s left five projects undone to come and help with this and they should at least do what they came out for. Besides, he’s pretty sure that last reference isn’t to something they can pull off. “You see anything she might like?”

“They’re shiny,” Hardison says, as though that’s an answer. 

“Yeah, they are,” Eliot says. “That tends to happen with diamonds. You want diamonds, right? Not any other stone or something plainer?”

Hardison looks across at him and that is not the face of a man who’s thought this through in detail.

“Do you even know what you’re after?” Eliot asks him. “Exactly when did you decide to propose, anyway? As I was serving the pancakes?”

A strange look crosses the other man’s face, but he shakes his head.

“Nah. Course not.”

Before Eliot can ask anything else, a woman appears behind the counter, smile in place and a carefully helpful look on her face.

“Are we looking for anything in particular, gentlemen?” she asks. “Perhaps I can help.”

“Engagement ring,” Eliot says, because Hardison seems to have stalled. He inclines his head. “For him.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet,” she says. “Shopping for his ring together. When did you propose?”

It takes a second, even though it shouldn’t, because they’ve had this sort of thing get said to them before. Eliot blinks when realization dawns and brings up the smile he uses to charm women into coffee, if not into his bed. 

“Oh, no, sweetheart,” he says. “Not me and him. He’s the one planning on proposing to his girlfriend.”

Hardison just nods and doesn’t look the slightest bit put out at her assumption. Eliot has to hand it to the guy, he never seems concerned that someone might think he’s in a relationship with a guy over a decade older than him with more scars than anyone needs in life. Then again, most of those aren’t visible and Hardison would probably want to help Eliot through any of the mental onces he found out about…

And this is a train of thought Eliot has sworn not to let himself board, so he brings it to a firm halt and winks at the shop assistant, who flushes.

“Oh,” she says. “I am so sorry. You just look so comfortable together. Um, do you have any rings in mind?”

“They’re all just so shiny,” Hardison says. “Hey, do you think you could show me that one? And these two? Any maybe that one there? I think she’d like that one. Do you think she’d like that one?”

Eliot rolls his eyes, shares a look with the assistant, who’s looking about two minutes from telling him when she gets off work, and turns back to Hardison.

“Why don’t you let Helen get out the ones you want to see? It is Helen?” The tag says it is and the way her smile warms into something less professional says she’s glad he’s put in the nanosecond of effort it took to check. “Pretty name. Would you mind showing me the ones my friend asked for first?”

“Of course,” Helen says. She chatters as she unlocks the case and brings the rings out, her gaze flicking to Eliot more often than anywhere else, even though she speaks to Hardison. “Have you got the proposal planned? Some people like the ring and the proposal to fit a theme.”

“Just the theme of being as beautiful as my girl,” Hardison says, and doesn’t even seem to be saying it to be charming. 

“Of course,” Helen says again, and Eliot wonders if she gets tired of hearing such sentimental stuff. “Have you been together long?”

“A couple of years,” Hardison says. “But, you know, when it’s time, it’s time. I just looked at her last night, all cute and happy, and knew it was time.”

Something about that rings hollow. Eliot’s heard Hardison spin a line enough times to tell when the guy’s not being truthful, but he can’t for the life of him see what Hardison would have to lie about. As far as Eliot knows, that is how people go about making the decision to propose. Aimee and him, that was different. It was more the end of High School and deciding the join the army and a bunch of stuff that doesn’t apply here. Besides, it wasn’t an engagement ring. So he doesn’t really know. He’s come to terms with the fact he never will, not with how his life’s worked out, and he’s okay with that. He is. But he wonders what Hardison could be cagey about.

In any case, they leave forty minutes later with no ring, no clue which ring Parker might want, and Helen’s phone number in Eliot’s pocket. If Hardison has a problem with him getting phone numbers, he could at least not scowl at it so much. Just because Hardison’s found the person he wants to spend the rest of his life in love with doesn’t mean Eliot has. 

He packs that thought away, too. Honesty is important, but so is self-preservation. 

In the second shop, Eliot flirts with the guy behind the counter and catches Hardison looking at him like he’s not sure what he’s seeing. Not like Eliot’s ever been explicit about being into men, but he figures Hardison must know. Guy’s smart. 

Hardison tells the guy, Mark, that he’s decided now is the time to propose because his girlfriend is going overseas and might not be back for a while. He wants them both to know there’s a solid bond there before she leaves. It’s the first Eliot’s heard of Parker going away, and even if he thought it were true, he could tell Hardison a ring doesn’t mean anything if the relationship’s going to break.

The third shop has Amina and a pleasant conversation about baking while Hardison gets distracted by rings and bracelets that are heavier and thicker than anything Eliot can picture Parker wearing. This time, when he joins them and looks at the rings Eliot’s picked out for consideration, Hardison says he wants to propose because he doesn’t want his girl to think she isn’t loved. Parker doesn’t accept she’s cared for easily, but Eliot’s pretty sure that once she does believe it, it takes a lot to shake that belief, so he hopes this is another lie. He’s almost certain it is, because what Hardison could have done to shake Parker’s trust in him is not something he wants to think about.

They’re seven shops in before Eliot’s had enough. He stops partway through a park and waits until Hardison notices, turns around and comes back to stand in front of him.

“What?” Hardison asks, looking genuinely confused. “You getting bored? Because we don’t have to keep doing this. I mean, yeah, I want the best for Parker, but I think maybe most of these places ain’t right. Maybe I should get a ring made? You know, with a stolen diamond. Something elegant and special and different. Maybe something that can be useful. What do you think? Should I look into how to make a ring more like a tool, or…? Eliot, why’re you looking at me like that?”

“Like what, Hardison?”

“Like you’ve got something in your eye. Something angry. An angry bug fly into your eye?”

Eliot folds his arms over his chest and tells himself he isn’t going to throw Hardison in the nearest river. 

“We’ve been all over town and you’ve told everyone we’ve met a different story about why you’re going to propose,” he says. “They were all lies, right? No-one’s leaving anyone or going overseas or just recovered from an illness?”

“Nah,” Hardison says. He shifts, glancing away. “People just like to hear that kind of thing.”

“That people have had an illness?” Eliot asks, because that one was a bit low.

“Nah. Now, come on, Eliot. I didn’t say she had-”

“You hinted at it-”

“I did not-”

They both stop, and now Hardison’s looking at him again. He looks sheepish.

“Why are you really proposing now?” Eliot asks. “Not that I’m not thrilled for you.”

“You are?” Hardison asks, looking like this is news to him. 

Which. What?

“You didn’t think I’d be pleased for you?” Eliot asks. “Man, come on. Two of my favorite people. I’ve been in this right from the start. You think I’m not going to be right there at the wedding, making sure the food’s right and the guests are taken care of and neither one of you tries to do something stupid on your own special day?”

Hardison sort of smiles, but he also looks kind of…sad. 

“Nah. I know you’ll be there,” he says. “Look, I just…had a moment. Where I knew she was the one. Not that I didn’t already know, but it was one of those times when you just know, you know?”

“You ain’t making an awful lot of sense,” Eliot says. 

“Yeah, well.” Hardison rubs the back of his own neck and an odd expression creeps onto his face. “It was just…she knows the theme to Star Wars. And…light-sabers.”

“Light-sabers have a theme-song?” Eliot asks. He’s surprised enough he doesn’t pretend not to know what they are. “What’d she do? Sing it?”

“Heh. Er. Well, she sang the Star Wars theme song,” Hardison says. “Um. Hummed it, anyway…”

At which point, Eliot recognizes the look on Hardison’s face. It’s the one that turns up when he’s thinking about Parker and him having-

“Oh, no,” Eliot says. “No, I do not need to hear this. I don’t need to know how humming Star Wars and… Fuck.”

Because there’s only so many ways he can think of that humming would figure into sex, and now he’s never going to get the image of Parker humming Star Wars around Hardison’s dick out of his head. And he’s worked very hard not to let images like that into his head at all, even to the point of working himself up to being angry when either of them mention their sex life. He’s got to protect himself somehow. 

Today is turning out to have a lot to shove away into the back of his mind.

“Yeah,” Hardison says, and after a moment his expression settles into something more serious. “Look, you get this won’t mean pushing you away, right? Neither of us will want to see you less. You’re family, man.”

“Okay. Sure,” Eliot says, and checks his escape routes again. Ring shopping was a bad enough idea. He doesn’t want to be in this part of the conversation that Hardison’s suddenly launched them into. “I get that. I’ll not be going anywhere. Gotta make sure your wedding isn’t blown up by magical invitations or anything.”

“Okay,” Hardison says after a moment, but he doesn’t look as happy as he could do. 

Eliot decides that’s enough risk of feelings and slaps him on the arm.

“Come on. You want a ring made for Parker, I’ll show you this place I know. I dated the woman who runs it once. She knows a lot of tricks you can play with hot metal.”

“That…sounds nasty,” Hardison says, but he follows Eliot anyway.

“Not that kind of… You know what? Never mind. Just don’t start telling me what the light-sabers had to do with it.”

“Just the one light-saber,” Hardison more or less mumbles, and Eliot pretends not to hear.

 

***

It’s a few days later that Parker bounces into the room and lands on the arm of the chair Eliot’s in. He’s in the middle of a chapter in the book he’s reading and he barely glances up.

“Hey,” Parker says. “You busy?”

“I’m reading,” Eliot says. “You can see that, Parker.”

“Okay. Sure,” she says. “So, are you busy?”

Eliot sighs and puts the books aside. 

“No. What do you need?”

Parker grins at him. She has her hands clasped together between her knees.

“I want you to help me get a ring. For proposing with. You know, for asking someone to marry you and be together even after you’re dead.”

“I don’t think that’s quite… You know what? Never mind. You’re thinking of proposing to Hardison?”

Parker just stares at him and Eliot gives in. It’s not like she can have anyone else in mind. Which is how he ends up shopping for rings for the second time in a few days. They start at the other end of town and only hit a few of the same places. 

“What about this one?” Parker asks, holding up a heavy silver band encrusted with emeralds. 

“I have no idea what that is, but it’s not something anyone should ever be wearing,” Eliot says, because it turns out he has more opinions than he realized about rings. “Wouldn’t Hardison want something…Star Wars themed, anyway?”

He curses himself the moment he says it. With Parker staring at him, eyes wide and curious, he has an even harder time getting that image out of his head than usual. Not that he’s spent the last few days with it filling his head. He hasn’t. It’s just…popped up now and again. Bad choice of words. It doesn’t help that after a moment she gets a slow, warm smile on her face.

“He does like Star Wars,” she says, and winks. 

“I don’t need to hear about this!” Eliot snaps and stalks off to the other end of the shop.

It’s a few minutes before Parker sidles up to him again, this time holding something much plainer. It’s not bad. Eliot could even see himself wearing it, all smooth dark metal and nothing that might catch the light at a bad moment. 

“Not got a diamond, though,” he says. “Thought you liked those.”

Parker turns the ring and there’s a diamond on the inner surface.

“It’s hiding,” she says. She sounds delighted by it. 

Eliot can’t help but smile back. Parker being so happy does things to him. No. Not things. He wipes the smile from his face and clears his throat. It’s just nice to see her happy about something other than flinging herself from a building or tazing someone. That’s all.

“Still not sure it’d suit Hardison,” he says, but he doesn’t say anything when he notices the spot in the display case is still empty when they leave.

 

***

 

Hardison doesn’t mention rings or proposing again for a while and there’s no sign of the ring Parker stole. Eliot figures either one of them has proposed to the other already and they’ve just not got around to telling him, or it was a fleeting thought for them. Not that they have to tell him either way. It’s none of his business. It was nice of Hardison to tell Eliot he’s part of the family, that he’ll be a part of things if they get hitched, but he’s not stupid. He knows he’s part of the team and he knows they’re more family than most anyone he’s ever known, but Parker and Hardison are together, and Eliot’s…not.

And he’s okay with that. He is. He’s taught himself to be, and Eliot is very good as learning his lessons.

With this latest weird blip over and done, he trains and he looks after his garden and he keeps an eye out for any dangers that might spring up. With the people they’ve gone up against he’s always half expecting something to come back and bite them. If he’s a bit more on edge about it lately, that’s just..that’s just… It’s none of anyone’s damn business, is what it is. 

“I’m only asking you to follow a few simple guidelines, Parker,” he says, attacking the next pan in the sink. “It’s not like I’m telling you to sit inside the whole time without moving.”

“You might as well be,” Parker says, and even without seeing her he can almost hear her eyes narrowing. “I’m not checking in every time I scale a building. I’m not a pet cat.”

Eliot pauses with his hands submerged in soapy water and marvels again at Parker’s view of, well, basically everything.

“Pet cats don’t call their owners, either,” he says.

“Exactly,” Parker says, and he can’t think of anything to say in reply. “Anyway, you’ll know where I am tonight.”

“I will?” He’s missed something. He hates it when he’s missed something. That tone in her voice says she has a plan and he’s part of it, and he doesn’t know what it is. “Why will I?”

“Because you’ll be there, too,” she tells him.

He feels a smack on his left shoulder that’s Parker’s version of a friendly pat before he’s abruptly aware he’s alone. The washing up is long done before he’s finished grumbling to himself about thieves with opaque conversational styles.

Hardison’s in the room downstairs when Eliot goes to find him, working on something to do with schematics that have nothing to do with anything as far as Eliot can see. They could be for some future job or they could be the plans for a base on some alien planet. Hardison has some odd ideas about those and Eliot hasn’t got the energy to argue with him about it right now.

“Are we supposed to be doing something tonight?” he asks. 

“Hey, Eliot,” Hardison says. “Good to see you, too. Didn’t know you were still here. What can I do for you?”

“Yeah. Hi.” He doesn’t bother pointing out that after Sunday lunch it’s always him who washes up, because he halfway suspects that both Parker and Hardison think elves do that. “So, are we? Parker said I’ll be where she is tonight, but I don’t know where I’m meant to be.”

“Oh, right,” Hardison says. “You know, you have got to start paying more attention. Anybody could sneak up on you if you don’t pay attention.”

Before Eliot can explode appropriately at that, Hardison looks away from his monitors and fixes Eliot with a much more serious look.

“Parker wants to have a meal together. It’s important to her.”

“We just ate together,” Eliot says. “Does that not count? It got to be a special meal? It’s not Thanksgiving or anything. And tonight? Wait. What does she want me to cook? We…You’ve not got anything in for a meal. I just used the last of the eggs.”

Parker and Hardison live above a restaurant and Eliot has raided the supplies from the Brewpub more than once, but Hardison doesn’t call him on that.

“Nah, man. She doesn’t want you to cook. She just wants you to show up. Be here for eight, all right?”

And this time Hardison claps him on the shoulder as he leaves. Eliot’s left standing on his own feeling confused and irritable and really in need of something to hit. 

 

***

At a quarter to eight, with the sweat from a session at one of his clubs washed away and one of his nicer shirts in place, Eliot hesitates at the door to the apartment proper. Normally, he just walks in, but there’s something oddly formal about Parker asking him over and not wanting him to cook. Well, he’s going on Hardison’s word about both of those things, but he doesn’t think Hardison was playing some joke. 

Thing is, knocking seems wrong. Only he doesn’t live here. And he’s wondering if he should have been knocking all this time. It’s only good luck he hasn’t walked in on them up to something theme-music related. 

Before he can sort out what he’s thinking, the door opens and Parker grabs his wrist, pulling him inside.

“Saw you on the camera,” she says. “The food’s in here.”

Inside, the table’s set up real nice with a vase of flowers and napkins. Well, there are some kinds of plant-life in the vase. Eliot’s not sure the collection of stalks and leaves is from any florist, but it’s still kind of nice. 

“What are we eating?” he asks, shrugging off his jacket and throwing it over the back of a chair. “Is that…cheese?”

It is. It’s not like cooked cheese is a smell he can get wrong, but it feels more polite to let Parker tell him. This is the first time she’s wanted to take charge of the meal and Eliot doesn’t want to put her off. 

“Peggy told Alice how to do it,” she says, and that’s one of her happy faces. “You heat up a whole thing of cheese and it goes gooey and you eat it with bread. Did you know that?”

“I’d run across the idea,” Eliot says. He doesn’t quite like to ask if that’s the whole meal. With Parker, he’s lucky it’s not going to be a meal made up entirely of cookies or of pastries or something. “Hardison joining us?”

“He’s coming by later,” Parker says.

Which makes having a meal together a bit hard, but this is clearly one of those nights where Eliot’s going to have to roll with the punches, so he smiles one of the smiles he keeps for Parker and takes the seat she points him to. Up close, it’s obvious the flowers have been plucked from wherever they were growing round the city. There’s a good chance at least one of them comes from a gutter. Eliot doesn’t say anything about it. 

The cheese is good, at least, and he makes a mental note to send Parker’s friend a note. If she can get Parker to make one thing that isn’t cereal, the woman’s a genius and genius should be appreciated. 

“So,” Parker says, once she’s eaten more than half of the cheese and licked her fingers clean, the bread turning out not to be quite up to the job, “I have something to ask you.”

Eliot’s expecting it to be something about food or another question about relationships that at this point he really doesn’t feel qualified to answer, so he’s thrown when Parker slips out of her seat and ends up on her knees next to his chair. She frowns and gestures at him and he stares at her, parts of his mind short-circuiting.

“What are you doing, Parker?” he asks.

“I need you to turn your chair,” Parker tells him. “I looked it up. And I asked Sophie and Peggy and Tara. You’re meant to be facing me.”

“You asked…? What?”

But when she continues to fix him with a determined look and gestures again, he shoves his chair back and around enough that she’s kneeling in front of him. He also has a death grip on the arms, ready to push himself up and flee if needs be. He has no idea what Hardison will think if he walks in now.

Parker offers him a little smile and she is far closer than he thought she’d be. 

“Hardison and I did something the other week and I didn’t want you to be left out,” she says. “So I wanted you to come over tonight so I could make sure you weren’t.” 

She must see Eliot flinch, because she frowns and goes on.

“I checked with Hardison. He said you might want to know that. Sophie said I should say that first. Sorry.”

“You…? What? Before what?” Eliot asks, and tries very hard not to think of the Star Wars theme song. Then he tries very hard not to think of the phrase ‘very hard’, but that’s a losing battle. “Parker, why do you have to be on your knees?”

“Because that’s how it’s done, silly,” she says, and moves her hand. 

Eliot’s grip tightens on the chair, because he really isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do here. Parker says she’s asked Hardison about whatever this is, and… Okay, he’s not going to think about Sophie and the others knowing. If Parker wants this and Hardison’s okay with it, and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t at least thought about it-

“That’s a ring.”

Parker’s holding a ring out. Her hand is way closer to his lap than he thought she’d be when he woke up this morning, but that is definitely a piece of jewelry being held up and not, say, his pants being unzipped. Which is fine. It’s good. It’s better than having to plan his escape when he doesn’t really think he’d want to escape.

“Yes,” Parker says. 

“Is that the ring you stole for Hardison?”

Parker pulls her hand back and looks at it, turning it slightly as though it might have become something else in her pocket. She nods and holds it back out.

“Yep. It’s the ring I stole when I told you we were looking for a ring for Hardison.”

There’s a crucial difference in that phrasing that he really needs to think about, only logical thought gave up a while back.

“Oh!” Parker says, slapping her free hand to her own forehead. “I have to say something else.”

She grins and then very obviously makes herself be serious, her eyes still holding whatever buoyant feeling has pushed her to this.

“Eliot Spencer,” she says, “would you do me the honor of becoming my wife.”

“Wife?”

His knuckles are nearly white on the chair now and he has got to remember how to speak in full sentences. 

Parker shrugs and pulls a face.

“Or husband. I don’t mind which.”

“Wife’s for women,” Eliot hisses, and wonders if Parker’s been watching some 1950s show that’s made her think whoever cooks most is the wife. He doesn’t even know how to start that conversation. It’s also not the biggest problem he’s got going on here.

“I thought it was just whoever was being proposed to,” she says. “Did I do it wrong?”

She looks sad, and Eliot hates it when she looks sad. She’s still holding the ring out but her hand’s sagged a bit. 

“No. No, not…wrong,” he says. “Just… Parker, are you practicing for proposing to Hardison?”

She looks confused for a moment, before shaking her head and smiling. She shifts until she’s sitting on her heels with one hand resting on Eliot’s knee and the other, the one with the ring, in her own lap.

“No. Hardison already proposed to me. I’m still waiting for my ring to be ready so we can steal it. He told me you helped with that.”

So Parker does know the proposal thing is for her and Hardison. That doesn’t help him understand why she’s trying to propose to him, too.

“And you know you don’t normally propose to friends?” he asks.

“Alec’s my friend,” she says, changing to the name she keeps for special occasions. 

“Yeah, but he’s not just your friend,” Eliot tries.

“Well, no. He’s my boyfriend,” she says. “We live together and hang out all the time and have sex.”

“Yes!” Eliot says. 

“And some of that’s true for you, as well.”

“We don’t live together,” he tries.

“We might as well,” Parker says. “You’re here a lot. And there’s room. And you cook and clean here. Most of the staff at the Brewpub think you already live here.”

“I still have my own place.”

“Yeah. I know. You can still keep it if we’re married. Or you can move in here full time. We have spare rooms or you can share with us. I have a spare room for when I want it.”

He knows that. It’s one of those things he feels a bit weird about knowing, but Parker has her own room for nights when she feels trapped by being in the same bed as someone else. He finds himself picturing it, having his own bed but sharing with Parker sometimes, and he has no idea what’s actually being offered here. 

He can’t really argue the hanging out part, so he has to go with the one he’d rather not say out loud.

“We don’t have sex,” he says.

“We could,” Parker says, as though it’s on a level with playing football or watching TV. “If you don’t like us that way, that’s okay, too. Sophie says I should ask you. But I know you love us. You don’t have to have sex to be married to someone. You just have to love them and build a life together, and we’re already doing that. We’ve been doing that for ages. If Alec and I are going to make it official, I want you to know you’re included, too.”

There are too many parts to that for him to respond to everything at once and he latches on to one of them.

“You think we don’t have sex because I don’t want to?”

If she glanced down a bit she might readjust her thinking on that one, but she keeps hold of his gaze and rubs a little circle on his knee. It doesn’t help.

“Alec read up on it,” she says. “Something about not being romantically and sexually attracted to the same people?”

Hardison and Parker have been reading up on things because they think Eliot loves them but doesn’t find them sexually attractive. That’s just… 

“I find you both plenty attractive,” he says, and can’t quite remember when this became about Hardison as well as Parker. “But the two of you are together! And you’re my best friends! I’m not going to get in between the two of you!”

Parker peers up at him, her head tilted. 

“You do want to have sex with us? With both of us? Or just one? Sophie said we should be really clear about things if we were going to have a polyamorous relationship.”

Eliot is certain he should have been clued into this before Sophie was, but he’s got bigger concerns still. 

“Does Hardison know what you’re asking me?”

She nods.

“I told you that already.”

And, yeah, okay. Eliot needs to hear it again, though, because if he’s managed to miss the fact he’s in a relationship with them, or that Parker has been thinking about it, he isn’t completely certain that Hardison will have understood that, either.

“And you were real clear?” he asks. “He knows exactly what you were gonna ask me? The ring? Marriage? Sex?”

He just about gets the last word out clearly and sees Parker brighten.

“Very clear. But we both agreed if you didn’t want us that way we’d be happy with the caring and loving parts. You’re really good at those.”

The flush of pleasure he feels at hearing those words is something he’s going to have to take out and examine properly later. At length, because Eliot has a rule about being honest with himself. 

The sound of the door opening has him almost pulling a muscle as he tries to get out of the seat and brings himself to a stop before he can hurt Parker by accident. When Hardison pokes his head around the door and frowns, Eliot almost swears. Parker said Hardison knew. Hell, she said he was on board.

“You not asked him yet?” Hardison says. “Baby, I thought you’d be at the kissing and hugging stage. I was all ready to find out if I could join in.”

Eliot splutters. He isn’t proud of it, but there are situations even he isn’t prepared for.

“Kissing and hugging?” he asks. 

Hardison makes his way inside and shuts the door behind him, his expression the one he uses when he thinks Eliot’s wound up and wants to calm him down. 

“Sorry,” he says. “Shouldn’t assume. Parker, you did say we ain’t gonna expect anything physical, didn’t you?”

“Yep,” Parker says. “But we got it wrong. Eliot says he likes both of us. But he won’t tell me if it’s a yes or a no. I thought the rule was you had to say.”

“Aw, man. You’ve let her propose and not answered her? Parker gave me an answer in thirty seconds flat.”

“It only took that long because my mouth was full,” she says, and there’s that image again. 

From the look on Hardison’s face, Eliot might be right about that image. Eliot blinks and finally manages to let go of the chair’s arm with his right hand. A little tentatively, and far too aware of every point of contact, he sets his palm against Parker’s head. It’s an odd angle and feels a bit like he’s about to stroke her, but the woman just proposed to him. He’s got to be allowed to touch.

“Do you mean it?” he asks. “It’s not some joke? Or…or some kind of being family proposal?”

“I mean it,” she says. “I said sex and polyamorous, Alex, but I don’t think he’s getting it. How do I make him get it?”

“You’re attracted to Parker?” Hardison asks, and when Eliot nods he goes on. “You want her to kiss you?” Another nod. “I’d say kiss him, mama. Might speed things up in that brain of his.”

Parker nods and surges up, and Eliot has a lap full of Parker in moments. His hand slips down until it’s resting against the curve of her back and he still has a near death-grip on the other chair-arm as she kisses him. He is very aware that Hardison is right there, watching. 

“That’s more like it,” he hears Hardison say, barely above an approving murmur. 

Yeah, Eliot is going to need a serious talk with himself about this, because hearing Hardison so obviously pleased by seeing Parker kissing Eliot is enough to have him kissing her back. He lets go of the chair at last and holds the side of her face, stroking along her hair with his thumb. 

When she pulls back, grinning, he takes a shaky breath and reality comes crashing back in.

He just kissed Parker. Parker is sitting in his lap, a fact he really can’t ignore, and he just kissed her. In front of Hardison. Who seemed happy about it. He tells himself to lift Parker off and run, but instead he sits right where he is and watches her.

“So?” Parker asks. “Oh, I should be on my knees again.”

She slithers off him and onto the ground, and no-way are both Parker and Hardison going to miss the evidence that he is very much attracted to her. Neither of them mention it. 

“Will you marry me?” Parker asks, holding the ring out again. “And Hardison? Will you marry us?”

“If it’s too quick, man, you just gotta say,” Hardison says. “Or if you don’t want this at all. We’ve talked about it and we want you in, but you don’t gotta.”

It is a lot, but it’s occurring to Eliot that Parker’s right: he’s more or less been in a relationship with them for ages. If not before Nate and Sophie left, then certainly since. About the only thing they haven’t done is have sex, and now it’s on the table, and they both seem so into the idea, he doesn’t want to walk away from it. As for the rest…

“I’m in,” he says. “Er. I mean, yeah. Yes.”

Parker laughs and takes his hand, slipping the ring onto it, and moments later Hardison pulls her to her feet. He holds out a hand to Eliot and there’s a ring glinting on Hardison’s finger, too. 

Eliot takes the hand, and he can think of more eventful times he’s spent in a chair, but this one’s had a lot less blood and bruising involved. 

“I guess you want a kiss, too, huh?” he asks.

“I could be persuaded,” Hardison says. “Come here.”

He kisses Hardison for the first time with a ring already on his finger and with Parker’s hand on his arm, and later he finds out exactly how good Parker is at humming that theme song. All in all, he’s had worse outcomes to a request.

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine or write any smutty last scenes for this you want to. Please. I can't do it. Just, if you do, let me know. Because I can READ smut.


End file.
